Ortega Hurls Blame Over Talks

February 24, 1988|By Storer H. Rowley, Chicago Tribune.

MANAGUA, NICARAGUA — President Daniel Ortega accused Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo Tuesday of mishandling last week`s failed cease-fire negotiations and named a senior military officer to head the government delegation to the talks.

In a letter characterized as ``arrogant`` by U.S.-backed contra rebels, Ortega criticized the Roman Catholic archbishop of Managua for twice delaying the talks he is mediating in an attempt to end the bloody 7-year-old civil war between the contras and the Sandinista government.

The president`s office made the three-page letter public here Tuesday before it was delivered to the cardinal, who was not immediately available for comment.

In the letter, Ortega disclosed that he is removing the senior Nicaraguan official on the commission, Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco, and naming as its new head Maj. Gen. Joaquin Cuadra Lacayo, deputy defense minister and chief of staff of the Sandinista Popular Army.

The president called for the resumption of peace talks by Friday and urged the contras to similarly upgrade the level of their cease-fire commission.

The Ortega letter comes as the Sandinistas are being blamed by Cardinal Obando y Bravo, the contras and the Reagan administration for the failure of the second round of cease-fire talks last week in Guatemala City.

Adolfo Calero, a member of the contra civilian directorate, said the rebels are ready to resume the talks immediately but plan no changes in their representatives.

The Sandinistas are trying make Tinoco the scapegoat for failure of the talks, Calero said Tuesday from his Miami office. ``They looked very bad coming out of Guatemala, and they`re trying to cover themselves for the failure there. That is why they`re making changes,`` he said.

The letter also was seen by some observers here as an effort to divert criticism to the church mediator. Ortega complained that the face-to-face negotiations were ``abruptly suspended`` by the cardinal without consulting either delegation.

Because the talks had been scheduled for three days, Ortega said, it was

``incomprehensible`` why the cardinal cut them short in the second day after only five hours and five minutes of discussion.

In a news conference Sunday, Cardinal Obando y Bravo said he had called off the talks because there was no consensus on a new cease-fire proposal he presented to both sides in Guatemala.

``The resistance (a reference to the contras) accepted it immediately,``

he noted. ``The government asked for clarification.`` Only after the cardinal suspended the talks on Friday did the government ``accept in principle`` his proposal, he added.

Ortega`s letter ignores specifics of the cardinal`s proposal, which called on the contras to accept a 30-day truce and for the government to make four political concessions in line with the Central American peace plan. The four points were a total amnesty to political prisoners, complete freedom of expression, a review of the compulsory military service law and resumption of the national dialogue with opposition groups.

Ortega sent word through his delegation in Guatemala that he would discuss the four demands in private with the cardinal. He said the cease-fire talks were not the proper forum for politial discussion.

In his letter, Ortega said the government viewed ``with consternation``

the delay in starting the second round of talks because of the cardinal`s finishing up a trip to Europe, where he visited Pope John Paul II.

``You have repeatedly pointed out that with each day that passes in Nicaragua another 25 Nicaraguans die as a consequence of the war of aggression,`` Ortega wrote. He added that the subsequent suspension of the talks gave him ``even greater worry.``

The letter also took note of a concern expressed by Cardinal Obando y Bravo on Friday that each side make sure its negotiating teams have

``sufficient power of decision`` so as not to waste time during the talks.

The cardinal`s admonition appeared aimed at the the Sandinista team, whose leader, Tinoco, spent considerable time conferring by phone with Ortega.